


A song of unheard steps, ascending

by Ruis



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Music, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/pseuds/Ruis
Summary: It had been a beautiful wedding and the memory of a joyous song still hung in the air.





	A song of unheard steps, ascending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meilan_Firaga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/gifts).



_A song in summer, hollow._

It had been a beautiful wedding and the memory of a joyous song still hung in the air. The meadow was quiet where just the day before, the love of his life had been dancing happily with her friends. Bright sunlight had been sent as a greeting from the one who had taught him how to play, a long time ago. He himself had been sitting in the shade of an olive tree, playing a tune he had composed just for her, and the tree had sung with him. So had the birds who had been curiously watching from their hiding places in the foliage. The center of his song, however, had always been his young wife. Only she could become one with the song, become the dance, become the melody that moves upon the rhythm. The shadows of the leaves had been dancing with her, following her graceful steps. His hands ached to bring that tune back to life. But how to play a song when the melody is missing? 

_A song on seven strings._

One by one, he plucked the strings of his lyre, seeking out that elusive memory. The notes were clear in his mind, yet he involuntarily hesitated to play them, instead playing any and all others, the true song marked as an absence that was still clearly there. Any other day, Orpheus would have been charmed by the tiny white pebble trying to hum along off key. It was an almost translucent piece of quartzite, polished smooth by the ages, and it seemed to insist on the diatonic Mixolydian mode. Usually, the dissonance added by the diminished fifth would just have amused him, but hearing the song he had composed for his own wedding thus rattled him deeply. Still, not blaming a piece of rock for his grief, he slipped it into his pocket anyway. Maybe, on a better day, they would sing together in harmony. The thought of a better day made him pause. For that to possibly happen, he would have to undertake a dangerous journey. 

_A song to interrupt the silence of the grave._

He made a decision, and the rhythm of a march, quietly tapped out on the tortoiseshell, faintly crept into his tune of weeping. All trees and rocks and beasts joined the chorus of his lament, yet it seemed to him that he alone could hear the quiet beat driving him on. He did not hesitate for even a second at the entrance. His way down was not long and always accompanied by his music. When he first entered the underworld, he only dared to play quietly, his lyre the only noise in a quiet world of shapeless grey, his song now speaking of shadows and eternity. Yet when the deep notes calmed the wide rivers he had to cross, and when those waters even joined his song, murmuring quietly in tune if not outright singing, he became more confident. He sang of hope in that hopeless world, and above all, he sang of his love. 

_A song like a snake, rapidly uncoiling._

And thus, Orpheus stepped before the king and queen, playing that song of love and joy, so cruelly interrupted. His song filled the otherwise soundless throne hall and echoed from the bare walls. Yet not only was the song reflected back at him. When he listened carefully, it sounded like the tune was changed somehow, was transformed into something else… And then suddenly it struck him. He had heard these harmonies before! Humbled, he understood that it had been himself who had been playing off key. For the first time since first entering the underworld, Orpheus was silent, his song interrupted by the knowledge of wrongness. With that realization, he also remembered the stone in his pocket, took it out and placed it back where it belonged, on the gravelly path below the thrones. He sat down and tuned his lyre anew, the seven strings forming exactly the scale he had scorned earlier. The lines of the song now followed the coils of that deadly snake, venomous dissonance in the chords.

 _A song intended for deep shadows._

This time, when he took up the song again, the whole pathway sang along with him, telling Eurydice’s death, from the largest stones vibrating almost inaudibly deep to the high clear notes of grains of sand. And he in turn learned unknown harmonies from letting the throne hall lead him. He was not sure if the king, sitting motionless on his throne with his face obscured by improbable shadows, was ever even listening to a single note. It was the queen whose stony façade had cracked for the tiniest bit when Orpheus had been sitting down, retuning his lyre. He would have given a lot to make that beautiful, distant woman sing along with him as well, yet if she had the power to bring his beloved back to life, a hint of a smile was more than enough. Her mercy at his moment of learning brought him a promise that meant more than the world to him.

_A song of unheard steps, ascending._

When Orpheus stood up, bowed and left, he knew his wife to be directly behind him. His tune danced around the ever present melody now, never quite following the run but always almost hitting the note that was needed to make her live again, dance again… To guide her, he played their very wedding tune again, remembering how much she had enjoyed it. His song became more spirited when they neared the world of the living. He dared to sing aloud now, giddy with anticipation of holding her in his arms again. Higher and higher, the melody rose. And yet, the song seemed to demand rhythm now. It had been composed not for his heavy steps, nor for tapping on the instrument, but for his lovely wife’s light dancing steps, and with every second, the absence became even more painfully obvious. On the edge of his hearing, was that one of her jumps, or was it water dripping from the damp hallway’s ceiling? Was he just singing along with the movement of empty air?

_A song that flows back to its basic key._

The warm sunlight on his face came as a relief, and yet… Of all the trees, rocks and creatures immediately rejoining his song, one was missing. Desperately, Orpheus played louder to drown out that horrible absence, played also the melody itself again, but to no avail. Instead of completing the song, the fifth string, the one that made the difference between hollow and full, finally snapped. The absence now painful, no completion nor rhythm, the song derailed and he simply could wait no longer. Turning, he saw the outstretched hands reaching for him, the shadow on the threshold to new life. She had been dancing, he saw. Even formless, he recognized the suggestion of dancing steps, now interrupted by the force pulling her back down unstoppably, irresistibly, now gone, gone like the last trace of that tune he would never play again after finally, unavoidably, the broken song ended on the same chord on which it had begun.


End file.
